Why Xavier Coates might just be the perfect NRL winger

Contributor
Peter Maniaty
Why Xavier Coates might just be the perfect NRL winger image

Is there a better or more versatile finisher in the NRL right now than Xavier Coates? 

Perhaps more to the point, has there ever been?

Soaring high above his rivals with gravity-defying precision and little fear of contact, stretching outrageously for corner posts with body fully airborne and snatching length-of-the-field intercepts to demoralise opponents. 

The 24-year-old from the Gold Coast does it all—and he keeps doing it.

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Coates was at his brilliant finishing best once again in the Round 24 win over Penrith.

“He flies, he catches, he scores, it’s absolutely brilliant again!” Mathew Thompson declared on Channel Nine as Coates rose above Brian To’o to register the Storm’s first try in the 22nd minute.

“It’s almost a cheat code,” Cronulla half Daniel Atkinson declared earlier this season, after being spectacularly out-leapt by Coates at Sharks Stadium.

“You just have to get the kick in the right spot and nine times out of ten, Xavier will come down with it.”

What a luxury for Storm coach Craig Bellamy to have at the end of his backline, turning half chances into four-pointers week after week after week.

Coates leaps to the top of the NRL try scorer list

Following another try double against the Panthers, his second in as many weeks, Coates has now surged to the top of the 2025 try scorer’s list with 18. 

It’s already the biggest try haul in his seven-year NRL career, and with plenty of games yet to come and a Storm attack zeroed in on maximising his rare skillset—and the NRL rules relating to tackling in the air—the sky’s the limit to how far he can go in 2025.

Coates made his debut with the Brisbane Broncos in 2019, but has gone to another level with Craig Bellamy and the Storm in the past four seasons, including making his Australian debut in 2024 (he also played one game for Papua New Guinea back in 2019).

The outrageously athletic 194cm Origin winger continues to prove virtually unstoppable under the high ball, matched perhaps only by Roosters veteran Daniel Tupou.

The next chance for Coates to add to his 2025 try tally comes against the Bulldogs in Round 25 at AAMI Park.